Animal rights crazies PETA have been denouncing Mario for promoting animal cruelty, saying Mario’s use of a “Tanooki” suit legitimises skinning animals alive for their fur.

PETA’s claims:

When on a mission to rescue the princess, Mario has been known to use any means necessary to defeat his enemy—even wearing the skin of a raccoon dog to give him special powers.

Tanooki may be just a “suit” in Mario games, but in real life, tanuki are raccoon dogs who are skinned alive for their fur. By wearing Tanooki, Mario is sending the message that it’s OK to wear fur. Play Super Tanooki Skin 2D and help Tanooki reclaim his fur!

To make their point, they provide a Flash Mario parody mini-game on their site:

The group also recently condemned Battlefield 3 for including a scene of rat killing, prompting many to comment unfavourably on their decision to completely ignore the game’s major premise of humans slaughtering other humans.

What, if anything, they have to say about the rampant animal skinning action seen in Skyrim also remains to be seen.

The Japanese response is sceptical to say the least – although if PETA’s objective was simply to splash their name around the Internet, even if only as an example of their desperate need for publicity and at the cost of alienating all reasonable gamers, they may have succeeded:

“It’s an animal suit.”

“They are totally crazy.”

“These people just use yakuza methods.”

“I’d expect them to be more concerned with Mario jumping on turtles all the time…”

“So reindeer suits are out as well now?”

“What about frog suits?”

“Mickey Mouse suits are animal abuse.”

“Pity the furries!”

“Tanuki Mario is from 1988… why now all of a sudden?”

“They just ignored the FPS?”

“Do people call them tanuki overseas as well?”

“The actual game is quite good.”

“Isn’t this copyright infringement?”

“I’d think it is Nintendo who will be suing them…”

“Do they think all those neko and usamimi are made from real animal ears or something?”

“So basically they want to extort money from Nintendo in exchange for shutting up about it.”

“This stuff is why I hate animal rights people.”

“They apparently started an ero site to spread their animal rights message more widely.”

“I’d really like to eat that.”

“These people are just nuts. I guess they don’t lead very satisfying lives, so they have to do this stuff.”

Yeah, but it's a common error, deriving from the fact that Japan has no true raccoons (which are indigenous to North America), and the indigenous Japanese raccoon-dog (the animal usually meant by "tanuki") is superficially similar. Even official translations are prone to making this mistake on occasion.

In fact, in SMB3 they ARE the same thing: blame Nintendo of America for that. When the game was translated, the result of getting a Super Leaf became "Raccoon Mario," while obtaining the eponymous suit gave "Tanooki [sic] Mario." In Japan, however, "Raccoon Mario" has a name that translates to "Tail Mario," and is tanuki-derived as well (even the leaf is a reference to myths about tanuki). The sole difference in the original, then, is that "Raccoon Mario" has the ears and tail of a tanuki, while "Tanooki Mario" wears the entire skin of one and for that gains the additional ability to (briefly) turn into a statue (a reference both to the animal's legendary shape-shifting ability and to the ubiquity of tanuki statues).

No, it isn't. There are no raccoons (genus Procyon) in Japan: they are endemic to the Americas.

In standard Japanese, "tanuki" refers to the raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides): an East Asian animal that looks similar to a raccoon (hence the species name procyonoides, meaning "raccoon-like"), and fills a similar ecological niche, but is taxonomically a member of the dog family (Canidae). True raccoons are more closely related to the red panda (Ailurus fulgens) and to the bears and giant panda (family Ursidae) than to dogs.

omg i always tough as a kid that mario had a cheap ass costume and that i wasnt made of fur... holy shit they go so far just to think that? Shouldn't they talk about the girl crushing animal with her ass? Mario jumps on turtle,kicks them,even throw them in holes! but no... he skin a tanooki...wtf

PETA are just a bunch of fuck heads doing publicity stunts, here's a news article telling what PETA is all about:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/nov/15/petas-hypocrisy/

"PETA claims it runs an animal shelter but in reality, what it runs is a slaughterhouse. Since 1998, PETA has killed more than 25,000 adoptable cats and dogs at its shelter, according to filings with the Commonwealth of Virginia. Two PETA employees were arrested in North Carolina in 2005 in connection with killing adoptable pets and tossing the bodies into garbage bins."

You're forgetting the hammers he uses to kill so many other creatures in the same game (good times, good times) along with the stone suit, fireball Mario, so forth. Super Mario 3 has been out for decades.

Doing all this all of a sudden smacks of public exposure for PETA and more money.

Nintendo could sue them for slander and copyright infringement, but unfortunately PETA can just claim it as a Parody which is categorised as fair use and legal.

Think of all the Mario flash games out there that pay homage or even make fun of the character and series.

PETA uses shock tactics to send their message, just below the game on the website there is a video of horrible treatment of animals, they did the same thing with the cooking mama mini game. The horrible thing is that these mini games are easily found by children and the videos can be traumatising to watch.

I'm surprised that PETA isn't considered a terrorist organization by now.

“These people are just nuts. I guess they don’t lead very satisfying lives, so they have to do this stuff.”

The One Truth...We humans do stuff we are not instinctively meant to do all the time since the dawn of civilization, after all~

Also, I am more concerned about all the turtles Mario has killed...

Apparently, the PETA zealots are not turtle enthusiasts given that they are okay with it for more than 30 years now (just ask Bowser and his koopa minions)...

I guess it is well in PETA's humane concept to jump on turtles and use them to hit other turtles (and let's not forget, roasting them alive with fireballs, hitting them with hammers, throwing them into molten lava/off a cliff, using them to hit a giant monster as live ammo, punching them in the face and stomping on them with your ass to get a 'BLUE' coin, etc.)...

*sighs*

One-sided PETA idiots...I guess you all need to suck on some huge Tanuki balls to live, eh..?

PETA members have the mental disease that cannot differentiate between reality and their fantasy. Therefore the things that they do and say make no sense to people who don't share their delusion.

Just as they (PETA) have been knowm to throw a paint on people who wear a fur coat. This will not cause people to stop wearing fur. In fact, more animals will likely be killed since that person will replace their fur coat with another one.

theyr going after nintendo because they have higher visibility, so theyr obvious PR stunt will have higher impact, but is laughable silly so i doubt it, EVEN if the tanooki suit was made from a skinned tanooki IS a videogame, as in NOT REAL, there is no society for the protection of pixels as far as i know or a bill for the rights of pixel or a geneva convention for pixels? is there?